


Storm and Calm

by ljs



Category: Devil's Cub - Georgette Heyer
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-04
Updated: 2011-09-04
Packaged: 2017-10-23 10:12:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/249164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ljs/pseuds/ljs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Marquis of Vidal and his Marchioness return from dinner with his parents. Management must be done.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Storm and Calm

The front door closed on the muted sounds of a Paris night. Inside was all storm: footsteps echoing on the marble floor of the foyer, a hat tossed idly at the butler, a greatcoat let fall wherever.

The Marquis of Vidal had returned home from dinner with his parents.

On the threshold still, calm in storm, the Marchioness of Vidal watched the impetuous upward progress of her lord in the general direction of the nearest bottle of burgundy. She was not quite smiling.

As Gaston hurried to take her coat, she nodded as if confirming a private thought. Then, smile just broken through, she said, “Thank you, Gaston. We shall not be going out again tonight.”

“Yes, madam,” he said. He had served the Alastair family for many years. “Shall I bring you tea?”

“Mary!” came the bellow from the library, one floor above.

“Thank you, yes, and wine for his lordship,” she said placidly, and then made her brisk way up the stairs. In her passage was the wavering of candles, the susurration of silk, and yet quiet, and yet calm.

Her husband – such an incongruously domestic term for the rakish, already disheveled young man presently throwing what was likely his second glass of burgundy down his throat – was sitting on his favourite sofa. It was, despite the drape of his long limbs, not a restful pose. When she entered, he looked up. “There you are,” he said crossly.

“And there _you_ are, Dominic.” He was a pleasing sight to her, even when his temper had been exacerbated by an evening's discourse with his grace the Duke of Avon – but this latter truth meant that she must handle him carefully. She waited for him to make room for her, which in his interpretation was a bare ten inches 'twixt himself and the arm of the sofa, and then settled herself against him. His hand (the one not holding his wine glass) took hers, and fingers interlocked.

“God and the devil,” he muttered, and finished his wine.

“A trying evening, my dear,” she said. “We should have expected it.”

“Who the devil would have told my father about that--” He broke off, unable to frame a description for his latest escapade, which had involved two hired bravos attacking the carriage in which he and his Marchioness had been riding, and his own pistol neatly killing them. This would not have raised his father's elegant eyebrows, had he not left the bodies in the Parisian street in front of that tedious Vicomte's place just as that nobleman had returned from the theatre. The Vicomte had not been amused, and words had been thrown, swords not quite drawn, scandal quite unsurprisingly brewed.

Mary's mouth teased up at the corners. “As you taught me before our marriage, your father is omniscient. He did not need to be told.”

“Damn,” he said. He reached for the wine bottle, but with unaccustomed clumsiness knocked it over. The small quantity remaining poured onto the Aubusson and soaked into a clutch of roses. His second “Damn” was said more loudly and viciously.

His wife did not so much as allow her eyelashes to flicker. “I already have instructed Gaston to bring your second bottle. Do not take on so, my dear.”

“It's not the _wine_ ,” he snapped. “Or rather, it is, but – does my father not understand why I shot those fools? Why I had no time for stupid de Roget?”

“Yes, of course he does.” She brushed a kiss on his temple, breathed through the pain when his grip on her hand tightened. “You wished to take me home before you dealt with the problem. You were protecting me. You are exceedingly good at that, Dominic, even when I don't in fact need it.”

They were very close together, storm and calm. His dark eyes softened, even as his smile turned ironic. “You are managing me again, Mary.”

“Am I?” She smiled at him, and then rested her head on his shoulder.

He turned his head, buried his mouth in her hair. “Yes,” he said, muffled, “and doing an excellent job of it.” He brought his free hand to the swell of her breasts, who rose and fell more swiftly at his touch. One long white finger traced one curve, then the next, then slipped beneath the silk like smoke. She made an indistinguishable sound as she arched closer to that wicked finger.

The door opened, and Gaston entered with the tray.

“Out, man,” the Marquis of Vidal said absently, his attention fixed on his wife. “Come back in an hour.”

Gaston bowed his way out – although not before seeing his master plunge his hand down his wife's bodice. He did not turn a hair.

After all, he had served the Alastair family for many years.


End file.
